The Disrespect that is Eurocentrism

I was just going to vent a little on Twitter and forget about this, but what I have to say won’t fit into 140 characters.

I like to write. But I’m a busy college student, so I don’t often have time to put my ideas to paper. So, I take creative writing classes at school in order to force myself to make time.

This week was workshop week. I’d started a story that I wasn’t too satisfied with but decided to keep working on it because I needed to submit something. Everyone gave good suggestions, and I would have left the workshop feeling fulfilled and armed with new ideas. But I couldn’t, because I’d spent the first few minutes of the workshop listening to a back and forth over the name of my character.

“What kind of name is that?”

“I thought it was a mistake”

“Yeah. I even commented on that in my edit letter”

“I’ve never heard this name before. Have you?”

“No. I thought it was made up. A play on words, maybe”.

Of course, I’m paraphrasing a little, but that’s the gist of what most people had to say about my character’s name. A name that shouldn’t even have been the topic of conversation.

Then, the teacher finally asked me if it was a real name, and I answered that it was. She looked at me and said, “I’ve really never heard of it. Hehe”.

To which I said, “Well, you’ve probably never heard of my name before either”. Trying to subtly point out that there’s a whole world of cultures and names beyond her apparently narrow scope.

I wanted to point out that if someone had just Googled the name, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I also wanted to point out that Funlola (the name in question) is not a rare name where I come from. But this was a workshop that required me to be quiet until I was permitted to speak. So, I said nothing.

I remembered that in the previous workshop, someone else had written a story set primarily in fantasy China. She’d attached a note to her story, saying that the names were based on Mandarin Chinese. No one brought up the names. I briefly wondered if I should have given a disclaimer saying that my story would feature names that were different from the expected “Amy” and “Barbara”, and there might be differences in perspective that are easily explained by cultural differences. Maybe then, they wouldn’t have made a fuss.

But why should I? Why should I have to explain that a character calling their parents “mummy and daddy” as opposed to “mum and dad”, is not an indicator of childishness in many parts of the world? Why should anyone have to explain that eating goat, frog and other “non-mainstream” meats is only as gross as eating cow meat?

Eurocentrism: “Focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as preeminent”.

It’s good to have pride in your culture. What’s not good is when you become unable to recognise that there are people who have different cultures. It’s very arrogant to assume that your way of doing things is the default setting for the world, and so anything that doesn’t pander to your ideals and stereotypes must be wrong.

I see this in book reviews a lot. This school of thought that books following POC or non-European/American/Canadian/Australian characters must have some extensive worldbuilding or explanation for the things that don’t fit into Western way of life. And if it’s not “exotic” or “different” enough, it’s probably an inaccurate representation. When will people realise that the world does not revolve around Western ideals and cultures?

I’ve never encountered footnotes explaining things like Thanksgiving and 4^th of July in the books I read. I’m yet to understand the concept behind naming your child something like “Abcde” or using the MM/DD/YY date format. I’ve never seen an author give a disclaimer because their characters are called “Brittany”, “Kyle”, and “Alex”. But I respect these differences without fuss after I’ve done the needed Googling. Do you?

People have discussed this topic a few times on Twitter and in blog posts, so it feels like I’m flogging a horse. But the horse is clearly not dead, since the workshop was on Wednesday, and no one seemed to realise just how annoying they sounded.

What do you think?